


Unstoppable Winchester Meets an Impossible Problem: A Love Story

by Antiphos_Nox



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27572014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antiphos_Nox/pseuds/Antiphos_Nox
Summary: Spoilers for 15x18 and 15x19. I wrote this in about two to three hours, the night after I watched Cas fall into the Empty forever. Warnings for Dean being an extremely stubborn idiot for a very long time and not taking care of himself, Sam being a Moose of Worry, and fleeting glimpses of Donna and Jody.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, cas - Relationship
Kudos: 39





	Unstoppable Winchester Meets an Impossible Problem: A Love Story

Dean doesn't tell Sam what Cas said just before he fell into the Empty. He needs a lot of time to get his head around the idea, especially the bit about 'angel of the not-God telling you he wants you.'

It takes him two weeks. He can't believe it takes that long, but in the end, he realizes he feels the same about Cas, in that old "Corbett loves Ed" kind of way.

So what to do about your soulmate being stuck in the Empty, apparently for all eternity? You find a way around the problem, of course. It's the Winchester way.

So Dean quietly starts reading every book they have on the Empty. There isn't much, and even less about getting someone out. Most books say it's impossible, that one would have to make a nasty deal or risk letting something awful out in the process, but people have been bouncing in and out of the Empty for awhile now, so he hopes that one more disappearance won't set her off again.

Sam notices, of course, that Dean is less exuberant, in his room an awful lot, and not drinking alcohol, which are warning signs that something's up with him. He checks which books have recently been moved in the newly-forming dust on the shelves and figures out Dean's researching alternate planes to their own, which can only mean he's looking at how to screw the Empty to get Cas back. He confronts him at breakfast the next morning.

"You're looking at books about the Empty? Why?"

Dean grunts and takes a sip of his coffee.

Sam keeps going. "You're trying to get Cas out?"

Dean gets extremely interested in his eggs and bacon.

"So you are," says Sam. "Figures. With your...thing." There's some sort of gesture in the air here from Sam's big hands that Dean looks at blankly.

"My 'thing'?" says Dean in slight exasperation, understanding on some level but hoping Sam won't go there.

But he does, with a roll of his eyes.

"11 years, Dean," Sam says wearily. "Back and forth, over and over, for over a decade. You and Cas and your 'profound bond.'" He actually uses quote fingers. Ugh.

"I don't know what you're talking about," says Dean archly, piling more bacon on his toast and making a sandwich out of it as he rises from the table. "I have work to do, so if we're done with this conversation..." and he walks out of the room with his plate.

Sam sighs and reaches for the toast. He'll give it ten or fifteen and go help him. If he has to live with Dean researching and putting books in the wrong places much longer, he'll go into the Empty and find Cas himself just to stop him messing up the system.

So the two of them work on it for awhile, until it becomes clear to both of them that they have read every book that exists on the Empty or references it. The Men of Letters left so much material behind; there is nothing else they could read. Sam researches some spells, but none of them are strong enough to open a door to someplace like the Empty. Artifacts ditto. The only way that Dean could get Cas out of the Empty is to make his own spell, and that has consequences like death or dismemberment.

So Dean swallows his pride (and his gag reflex) and goes to ask Rowena, the new Queen, or Duchess or Knightness, whatever, of Hell. He politely asks if he can get into the Empty with anything that currently exists. She smiles wickedly.

"Trying to get dear Castiel out of the Empty? Dear, dear, you must be desperate already if you're coming to little ol' me, Dean Winchester!"

Dean grits his teeth and says nothing to Rowena. Not-God forbid she find out what Cas said just before he fell, or he'd have to endure her squealing about their manly love. Dean had withstood Hell and Purgatory, but Rowena crowing about their beautiful gay romance might just kill him, for good.

Rowena, unfortunately, is not on good relations with the Empty and wouldn't even know how to get there, let alone open a door and wake someone up. She's got nothing. If she did, she said she'd have marched in there and taken her demons back so she'd have more subjects to rule over.

So Dean finds himself in a bit of a quandary. Either he gives up – and has Dean Winchester ever given up? No. Well, a couple of times, when things got really bad. But not for this, is Dean Winchester going to give up in the face of impossible odds and impenetrable, invisible planes of existence when Cas is involved, not now. His other option is to research alchemy and powerful magical items and cobble together something himself.

After two months, Dean moves out of the Bunker and into a rundown little place not far from Jody. Sam was overbearing in his moosely worry and was worried that Dean was obsessing over something he could not change. He wasn't eating and sleeping enough for Sam's comfort. It just got to be too much. He only goes back to grab books, but even that peters out after he's read all the helpful ones.

He sees Sam at Thanksgiving and Christmas at Jody's, and his tight, worried mouth that won't say, "Dean, you've been at this for a year." "Dean, you've been at this for two years." "Dean, it's going to be three years in a few months, don't you think you should give up?"

Jody hugs him and between her and Donna, they try to put a smile on his face and feed him because he's too skinny. His hair starts to go gray. Dean doesn't care. Cas is waiting for him, dreaming in the Empty of the day he can hold Dean in his arms again. Dean wants that, too, more than anything. 

Some days, when the latest attempt at a spell backfires and Dean is missing his eyebrows for the fourth time in three months, when he has worked for days on a device to do this or that, only to watch it crumble or break on him, he puts his head down and looks at the battered photograph of Cas and him with their arms around each other, of Cas looking at him as he laughs with that devotion in his eyes that Dean wishes he had seen sooner. And he tries again, because he has to.

So it takes three very long years to finally get a door to the Empty open. He can't believe it when he does it. He had tried almost the same thing the day before yesterday and had had to use his threadbare shirt to put out the fire.

So, he has the door. Now to negotiate for Cas' return.

But she won't budge. She's had enough interference from the humans, angels, and reapers, and she has had it up to here. She throws Dean out of the Empty on his ass and seals the door on him, ignoring his screams and pounding on the wall for hours afterward.

The door he worked so hard to open was now closed, despite his desperate attempts to reopen it, his tears mixing with the spell and tinkling off the gadget he created for the purpose. 

Three years wasted.

He smashes the device with his fist and screams his head off in frustration, scaring the birds out of the rafters above him and wrecking what was left of his vocal cords, after begging, pleading, and praying for hours.

Dean goes to bed and doesn't get out of it for three days after that. He is emaciated, tired, dirty, and completely without hope. Cas is forever beyond his reach. 

Sam comes around because Dean hasn't answered his phone in days. He takes one look at his older brother and calls in the cavalry. Suddenly, he awakens in the Bunker, with Donna, Jody, and Sam hovering over him like he's frail and broken. He develops pneumonia thanks to his weakened state - it becomes clear he's in a bad place medically, and there's whispered debates outside the door, with words like "hospital" and "doctor." Sam is terrified, and Dean would reassure him he'll be fine, but his lungs hurt and his body hurts and he just wants to sleep because he's so unbelievably tired.

He isn't aware that someone knocks on the Bunker door and is welcomed back with cries of joy and open arms from all parties conscious of his arrival, that the someone is rushed down to Dean's sickbed with as much speed as his holy tax accountant getup allows, that a hand is laid on Dean's burning forehead and healing is brought to a body that has seen too much battle and too little rest for too long.

When Dean awakes the next morning, he is immediately confused as hell. He was aware he'd been sick, very much so, to the point that Sam had been ready to bundle his behind in a blanket and fireman carry him to the nearest hospital. He can breathe easily for the first time in forever, and his fever is gone.

Then he spots the trenchcoat, that tan trenchcoat he remembered so very well, hanging over the chair like it's been there forever. 

Oh, not-God.

Cas.

CAS.

Dean has never moved so fast in his life. He stumbles out in the hallway like a baby giraffe, slipping and sliding as he runs towards the kitchen. His brain is racing – how is he here? Did something work? What? How? Why? How would this come around and bite him in the ass?

He rounds the corner to the kitchen and grabs the doorframe as he skids by at lightspeed.

His brother and Donna are in the kitchen, making breakfast, and they startle at their patient hurtling into the room like a lunatic, glaring into every corner as if they're hiding Cas someplace.

Sam gets it.

"He's asleep. You took a lot out of him," he says gently, pushing Dean, clad only in his boxers with no shirt on, out of the room.

Dean wheezes, "Must. See. Cas." He hasn't run like that in awhile, and he's out of shape and Cas is so close but far away and come on, Sam, walk him down the damn hallway so he can wake Sleeping Pretty Boy Angel with a kiss and ask him how in the million shades of Empty did he get here?

And then Sam is opening the door, and Cas lays there, on his stomach and still in his wrinkled suit, snoring like an elephant with a bad cold. Dean goes to his knees next to the bed, in almost a reverent prayer, unable to believe what his eyes are seeing. He lays a cautious hand on Cas, unable to believe after three years that he's here, that the man he's worked so hard to get to for so long is in front of him.

Sam quietly backs out without being noticed, closes the door, and goes back to Donna and Jody to join in the fistbumps and the joy at Dean and Cas being reunited, finally.

As for Dean, he wakes his angel with a kiss that he's planned on for forever, and Cas sucks in a breath in surprise and then, realizing what's happening, enthusiastically joins in the smooch.

It turns out that Dean opened the door for long enough to get a prayer through that sang of absolute and total desperation, apparently so loud it had woken Cas from an eternity of sleep. He had just barely slid through the door, invisible, before the Empty had slammed it shut. He didn't think she'd noticed him leaving; he could only hope she wouldn't come after him for breaking his deal.

It had taken him a week or two to get himself visible again and down to the bunker, only to have to heal his long-lost Winchester the minute he got there from the pneumonia that had been killing him. The escape from the Empty, the long attempt to get himself back to a physical form, and healing Dean had zapped his energy reserves.

Dean gladly crawled into the bed with Cas and curled around him in exhaustion, trying not to cry as he held him.

"How long?"

"Three years," Dean said in a choked voice.

Cas turned over in his arms.

"You opened the door?"

Dean nodded. "Created this thing from scrap that detected weaknesses in the webbing around the Empty's defenses. Found 'em, and then pounded at them with symbols and alchemy until I blew a hole big enough in the wall to get me through."

Cas smiles. "I don't know how I'll ever thank you."

"You here? That's all the thanks I need."

Cas' smile is as bright as the sun. "I always knew you could do it, Dean. I'm so proud of you."

Dean snorts. Cas might be the only one who's proud of him over this. He's going to have to deal with Sam bitching at him about everything for awhile, possibly forever, for not eating or sleeping or taking care of himself to build some damn device out of tractor parts and bits of tree, but with Cas in his arms going back to sleep and snoring in his face, he can't really be bothered to care.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my story. I am an infrequent fanfic writer; I used to do it more but I've been focusing on my own stuff this year (one novel out and another on the way, not-Chuck willing.) This one attacked me at work and kept talking in my ear and I needed to get it out of my head so it would shut up. This is the result. Please comment and kudos my story. Bec


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